There is logic behind our assumption due to a direct correlation between D&B subscriptions and economic cycles. To better understand why we use the stock price of Dun&Bradstreet to predict stock market cycles we will dive into a short introduction what Dun&Bradstreet actually is.

Ever wondered if you can design a profitable trading strategy by trading volatility ETFs ? Well, yes you can. Those ETFs are highly ineffective vehicles on a long term investment horizon. However short term strategies have shown to be a rewarding way to trade these ETFs. Before we move onto strategy design we have to choose two volatility ETFs for backtesting. We will backtest our strategies with VXX and XIV ETFs since they are the most widely traded ones and have enough trading volume to keep our slippage low and guarantee fast order execution.

The first step in building such a system is to define what mean reversion is. Mean reversion systems are looking for markets that are unusually high or low and will eventually return back to the mean. We want a system that looks at a particular market with a significant deviation from their average. Our previous research we did on opening range breakout systems already showed us that opening range breakouts define the trend for the rest of the day in about 30% of the time. Which means that out of 20 trading days we have 14 days of price patterns that are reverting back to the mean.

A thrilling documentary about a genius algorithm builder who dared to stand up against Wall Street. Haim Bodek aka The Algo Arms Dealer. Haim Bodek is a former Goldman and UBS trader who has come firmly out against how stock exchanges work with high frequency traders. Mr. Bodek had worked with rapid-fire trading firms to give them an unfair edge over everyday investors.

Time frames are used in order to forecast future price trends. Many traders are missing out on this important aspect of trading by only looking at one time frame when trying to define a trend. Therefore its important to categorize trends as primary, intermediate and short term trends. As a rule of thumb the primary trend is filtering out much of the market noise and is giving us more reliable signals in which direction the market is heading